Ghost Mall! SPOOOOKY!

[enyawd72]

My wife and I went to our local mall last night to see Jurassic World...at 6:00 PM we were the only two living beings walking the halls...90% of the stores are now closed. Look at this pic...not a soul in sight. It was downright eerie.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

Whoa, that is spooky. My mom had keys to the mall for her business when I was young and it was cool to walk around when it was closed and the lights were down. 90% of the retail space is empty? Man, that is brutal. I know when I was young that my mom' space was rented by square foot and then you paid more on top of your earnings. I cant exactly recall how it worked but it seemed like an odd system. I dont know how some of the smaller stores ever stayed in business.

[Hedji]

[enyawd72]

Whoa, that is spooky. My mom had keys to the mall for her business when I was young and it was cool to walk around when it was closed and the lights were down. 90% of the retail space is empty? Man, that is brutal. I know when I was young that my mom' space was rented by square foot and then you paid more on top of your earnings. I cant exactly recall how it worked but it seemed like an odd system. I dont know how some of the smaller stores ever stayed in business.

Yeah it was very surreal...they don't even play music anymore because there's nobody to listen to it. You could have heard a freaking pin drop in there. It sucks...I remember going there in the mid 90's and it was packed. I used to go to Family Toy Warehouse, Sam Goody, Spencer Gifts, Waldenbooks, NRM , play air hockey at the arcade, grab some pizza in the food court...now there is no food court. There's no food period.

[cockyhoskins]

I know when I was young that my mom' space was rented by square foot and then you paid more on top of your earnings. I cant exactly recall how it worked but it seemed like an odd system. I dont know how some of the smaller stores ever stayed in business.

"Percentage rent" is common to this day. It actually helps smaller stores get into higher end spaces. Larger stores (nat'l chains) can afford to paying the going rate. Smaller stores get a considerably lower base rent. They then pay a percentage of sales above a base limit based on their reportings. In theory, they only pay the higher rents of the chain stores if their sales warrant it.

[cockyhoskins]

It's a shame (or interesting depending on your viewpoint) how the once great mall of the late '70s and '80s is now dead. In our metro area (Greenville, SC), three of our four malls are now gone and have been for years. Simon bought the one remaining and it continues strong, but the others have been razed and replaced with free-standing retail, which actually draws much better than the traditional mall today. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm an attorney with a background in commercial real estate development

[Gorn Captain]

My wife and I went to our local mall last night to see Jurassic World...at 6:00 PM we were the only two living beings walking the halls...90% of the stores are now closed. Look at this pic...not a soul in sight. It was downright eerie.

You should have re-enacted Dawn of the Dead!
That place has the perfect atmosphere for it.

Did you ever see that video on YouTube of the guy with no legs doing his Halloween prank?
He dresses up as if his legs has been slashed off and surprises people in an empty parking lot, pretending he's crawling on the ground bleeding, trying to get away from a maniac. His buddy then comes in with a fake chainsaw, in pursuit.
I wonder if you can get arrested for that?

Boy, my imagination is running wild...

[Earth 2 Chris]

Lexington Mall near me looked like that for the last several years of it's existence. It is downright eerie.

Chris

[LordMudd]

Mall of the Mainland between Houston and Galveston had a listing on DeadMalls.com. It was once said you could fire off a cannon in the middle of the day and not worry about hitting anyone.


CCC.

[kerowack]

The malls here are still crowded but everything is crowded on Long Island.

[TomStrong]

Florence, Al is very close to me (where we do our shopping and grocery gettin') and the mall there is still banging! They even recently built a jumbotron in the roadside. Got a new dine in chick fil a outside and almost all the spaces inside are full. They took out the coin fountains long ago though, boy I miss those. They've put in new carpet too and tile in the food court.

[GlobalObserver]

One of our two malls closed down years ago. The other looks just as desolate as the one in enyawd72's photo.

[Hedji]

Are we seeing the results of online shopping?

[LonnieFisher]

Are we seeing the results of online shopping?

Indeed!

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

"Percentage rent" is common to this day. It actually helps smaller stores get into higher end spaces. Larger stores (nat'l chains) can afford to paying the going rate. Smaller stores get a considerably lower base rent. They then pay a percentage of sales above a base limit based on their reportings. In theory, they only pay the higher rents of the chain stores if their sales warrant it.

Thanks cockyhoskins, I assumed it was to help smaller stores get into the mall but I didnt know the exact details. She sold the business in the 90s and I thought it was a bad move, but the major industries dried up and lots of folks left to find work elsewhere. I dont know what the inside looks like now but the anchor stores ("big" retailers changed from K-Mart, and Safeway from when I was a kid, to Dollarama and a local grocery chain).
Dawn of the Dead' music went through my head when I looked at the picture, as it looks like the mall where they throw the toilet to break the store window in the remake.

Kind of guts me to know there are this many places so empty in North America.